The story of the $500 dog started around Christmas, when Klinkel and his wife took a road trip to visit their daughter and her husband, Amy and Coty Church, in Denver. Along the way, they stopped for dinner and left their 12-year-old golden retriever, Sundance, locked in the vehicle. They also left the five $100 bills and a $1 bill in a cubbyhole in their rig.

When they returned to the car, the doors were still locked and the dog was still inside. The $1 bill was lying on the driver's seat. About half of a $100 bill was next to it.

The rest was gone.

"Sundance is notorious for eating anything and everything, so right away I knew what happened," Klinkel said.

He added that cleaning up after Sundance for years taught him that paper doesn't digest. So for the rest of his vacation, Klinkel followed the dog around outside as he went about his business. Wearing rubber gloves, he picked portions of the five $100 bills out of the dog poop.

"I pretty much recovered two fairly complete bills, and had some other pieces," Klinkel said. "But it wasn't nearly enough there to do anything with it."

Recently, however, his daughter came to Montana to visit. She brought a small baggy with her that held more pieces of $100 bills.

"She said ‘Oh, Dad, look what Coty found in the back yard,'" Klinkel said. "They found it after the snow had melted. She said they were shocked it hadn't blown away. Good thing it's a fenced yard."

Klinkel first put the hundred-dollar remnants in a five-gallon bucket of water and dish soap — a lot of dish soap — and let it soak for about a week while he tried to get in the right frame of mind for the task at hand.

Eventually, he drained and rinsed the pieces, using a screen made for panning for sapphires. Once the bills were dry, he painstakingly pieced them back together, taped them and put each individual bill in a plastic bag.

Now Klinkel needed to figure out what to do with them. So he searched online and decided to take the bills to the Federal Reserve Bank in Helena.

He was stopped at the gate by the guard, who told him the Federal Reserve "is the bank's bank" and that he needed to take the bills to a bank. Klinkel went to one local bank, where three tellers gingerly picked up one of the baggies and examined it.

"Eww," the teller said. "We can't take these because we would have to give them to another customer."

Klinkel tried to explain that the banks give mutilated or worn out bills to the Federal Reserve, but the tellers refused to believe him.

So he went to a larger local bank, where the tellers this time broke out in hearty laughs when they heard of his plight. Their bank policy is to tell the customer to "send the mutilated currency, at their own expense and risk" to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, along with a letter explaining how the currency was destroyed and the customer's name and address.

"The Department of the Treasury sends a check directly to the customer when they deem the currency redeemable," the bank policy stated.

But the bank staff noted that since none of the bills had the entire two serial numbers on them, they didn't think the bills were redeemable.

However, a federal government employee, who declined to be identified, said that all Klinkel needs is 51 percent of the bills to be reimbursed. Information from the Treasury website adds that "each case is carefully examined by an experienced mutilated currency examiner" and if they decide that Klinkel's tale of woe is true, they just might send him a $500 check. That could take anywhere from six months to two years.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Indianapolis police say a mother is accused of feeding her child a toxic homemade concoction in an attempt to "cure" the child's autism. FOX 59 reports that the woman's husband claims his wife put drops of hydrochloric acid and a water purifying solution containing chlorine into their child's beverage. The woman reportedly referred to the mixture as a "miracle mineral solution" and said she found the recipe on a Facebook group page.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Indianapolis police say a mother is accused of feeding her child a toxic homemade concoction in an attempt to "cure" the child's autism. FOX 59 reports that the woman's husband claims his wife put drops of hydrochloric acid and a water purifying solution containing chlorine into their child's beverage. The woman reportedly referred to the mixture as a "miracle mineral solution" and said she found the recipe on a Facebook group page.

As of Friday, the CDC reports that 84 children in the U.S. have died from in the flu this season. In a news conference Thursday, the CDC said that of those who died, three-fourths of them did not receive the flu vaccine. Health officials said that roughly one in every 13 visits to the doctor last week was for fever, cough and other symptoms of the flu. The flu is currently widespread across 47 states except for Oregon, which is reporting local flu activity.&nb...More >>

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A fire alarm that was sounded during a Florida high school shooting this week added to the chaos of the day. When a fire alarm goes off, students typically flee the building. During active shooter situations, they hunker down in classrooms. Both scenarios occurred in Florida, creating a dilemma for students and staff. Emergency responders say there is no single accepted set of best practices for responding to active shooter situations, and the pr...

A fire alarm that was sounded during a Florida high school shooting this week added to the chaos of the day. When a fire alarm goes off, students typically flee the building. During active shooter situations, they hunker down in classrooms. Both scenarios occurred in Florida, creating a dilemma for students and staff. Emergency responders say there is no single accepted set of best practices for responding to active shooter situations, and the pr...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toy box will come to life at Wald Disney World in Florida this summer. Disney confirmed Friday that their upcoming Toy Story Land will officially open to guests on June 30. Located at Disney's Hollywood Studios, the 11-acre land will include two new attractions and a new entrance to the existing Toy Story Mania attraction. Guests will 'shrink' down to the size of toys while riding the new Slinky Dog

ORLANDO, Fla. - Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toy box will come to life at Wald Disney World in Florida this summer. Disney confirmed Friday that their upcoming Toy Story Land will officially open to guests on June 30. Located at Disney's Hollywood Studios, the 11-acre land will include two new attractions and a new entrance to the existing Toy Story Mania attraction. Guests will 'shrink' down to the size of toys while riding the new Slinky Dog

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PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) - The Latest on the Pyeongchang Olympics (all times local): 1:15 p.m. Pyeongchang Olympics organizers say a Korean man in his 50s has died in one of the media villages at the games. Organizing committee spokesman Sung Baik-you says the manwas working for a consortium of Japanese broadcasters during the games. The man was not responsive when he was found in his room by a co-worker. Sung says police were called and the Korea...

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NEW YORK (AP) - It doesn't take much to slow down the New York subway system. On Friday afternoon, one bundle of fur stopped train service on a transit line between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Officer George Tsourovakas (tsoo-roh-VAH'-kahs) says a poodle named Dakota got away from a Brooklyn park run near the Manhattan Bridge and dashed into the York Street station, making it to the tracks of the F train and running southbound on the northbound tracks. To spare the animal...

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PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say the former student accused of fatally shooting 17 people at a Florida high school had excelled at marksmanship in the school's air-rifle program, which received a grant from the National Rifle Association Foundation. The NRA Foundation gave nearly $2.2 million to schools across 30 states as of 2016, the latest year in which its federal tax filings are publicly available. The money was used by the gun group to support youth shooting clubs and other